Description
Hailed as Quaid-e-Azam (The Great Leader), Mohammad Ali Jinnah has an understandably exalted status within Pakistani political memory. Quite predictably then, he has remained a controversial figure within India. Curating Jinnah is therefore a tricky exercise. This paper looks at how his memory translated into the Museum's display and in what ways has Jinnah been appropriated within the curated space. The paper argues that by staging nationalism and communalism as distinct features of Indian socio-political life, the Museum renders communalism as the pejorative other to a united, cohesive, and modern spirit of nationalism. Jinnah, then becomes the poster child of communalism within its display, the Museum suggests that Pakistan came into being as a result of Jinnah’s perseverance and intentions. The story is almost totally centred around him and his words. The Congress, on the hand, becomes an organisation that tried hard to maintain India’s unity and multi-cultural fabric. In doing so, the Museum keeps its focus on events and individuals of high politics, which is contradictory to its declared philosophy of being a people’s museum. Secondly, it frames and explains the creation of Partition through a selective reading of history.
